A Twice in a Lifetime Experience
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: "If the TARDIS wants to go doin' the Greatest Hits tour, that's fine and all, but you can just go right back in there and tell her that this isn't one of the things I really wanna repeat, thanks." Rose/Ten II


When the Doctor finally announced that the TARDIS was capable of 'flight', it was the happiest Rose had seen him since they'd been dumped into this new universe together.

She wished that wasn't the case. She could have spent the last few months making him _very _happy indeed, if he'd seemed to want that. However, he'd been all too happy to let them settle into a sort of holding pattern just as soon as the possibility of her choosing that other Doctor over him had passed.

Still, she definitely did share his enthusiasm for getting back out into the universe. Even a truck load of awkwardness being dumped between them wasn't going to change that.

"A spaceship!" Rose exclaimed as she emerged from behind the TARDIS door. "On the first go-out and all. Can I just say, I've _missed _proper spaceships."

"What's the TARDIS supposed to be, then?" the Doctor asked indignantly.

"Ah, c'mon, you know it's different. That's _home_," Rose said.

She could tell the Doctor was pleased to hear her say that, though she didn't know why he would be at all surprised. This particular TARDIS might have been new, having not so long ago been nothing more than a broken-off bit of coral, but it was still a part of the old one, and therefore a huge part of _him_. Of course it felt like home.

The TARDIS wasn't the only ship at that moment that had a sense of familiarity attached to it, though. Rose had a strange feeling of déjà vu as she walked slowly down a side corridor while the Doctor continued to poke around near the TARDIS. She wrote it off as just being because she was back out in space. At least, she did right up until the second that she pulled up short, stunned. The woman on the other side of the pane of glass beside her didn't appear to even notice Rose, despite looking directly at her. Rose wished she could say the same. She'd have given just about anything not to see _her_again.

"Oh. No. No _way_," Rose breathed.

"Rose!" the Doctor called out as he came up behind her. "We're back on that 51st century ship. You know, the one with the clockwork robots. Remember that?"

"Bit hard to forget," she commented wryly.

"Oh, and look, it's Madame de Pompadour again as well! See!" He watched her preen in front of what Rose now remembered was a huge mirror. He looked far more pleased to see Reinette again than Rose would like, if she was honest.

"Yeah, I'm definitely seein' it," Rose said. "It's the believin' part I'm havin' a bit of a problem with."

"Oh, it's not so strange, really," said the Doctor, absent-mindedly pressing a hand against the surface in front of him as if somehow trying to reaching through it to touch Reinette herself. "I should have expected something like this, actually. The new TARDIS is still adjusting to having to run off the power from the wrong universe, even if it's the universe she technically grew up in, so she needs a lot more of that energy. Sort of like a teenager, if you think about it. The time energy being put off by this ship is massive, if I recall correctly – and I always do – so this place must have seemed like a smorgasbord to her. And I've never met a teenager of any species or kind that didn't eat like it was going out of fashion. Well, except teenage androids, of course; they obviously don't need to eat at all, what with the lack of living parts and cell growth and such. Anyway. It's a bit of a two-for-one, this. Stuck in a strange universe, the TARDIS is probably even homesick for something familiar as well." The Doctor sounded as though he understood that instinct.

"Yeah, well," Rose said, "if the TARDIS wants to go doin' the Greatest Hits tour, that's fine and all, but you can just go right back in there and tell her that _this _isn't one of the things I really wanna repeat, thanks. What about somewhere like Woman Wept instead? I'd love to go back there, if it even exists in this universe."

"Oi, what's wrong with here?" the Doctor asked, as if he honestly didn't know the answer. "18th century France on board a 51st century spaceship, Rose! Even with the TARDIS, you'd expect that to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and here we are able to see it all over again. How is that not brilliant?"

Rose glared at him. "You're kiddin' me, right? Have you completely forgotten what happened actually here?"

"Oh, don't worry," the Doctor said dismissively. "This time we know what to watch out for. You won't end up tied to a chair again, I swear."

"Really not the issue," Rose muttered.

"What?"

"The last time we were on this ship, afterwards you wouldn't talk to me or Mickey at all for two whole days. You shut me out," Rose accused. "You really think I wanna go through that again?"

The Doctor laughed nervously. "Oh, well, obviously that's not about to happen again. Definitely. Not a chance, even a small one." Rose wondered which of them he was trying so hard to convince.

Rose had seen that excited look in the Doctor's eyes at seeing Reinette again, and it was like reliving history. While she thought that she and the Doctor were balancing on the cusp of becoming a proper couple – they'd kissed, and they'd both confessed to loving each other and everything, even if things hadn't developed any further since then – 'practically' wasn't the same thing as 'actually'. Things between them were still so unsettled and strange that Rose didn't know what to think. And, after all, Rose had been pretty sure that they were practically a couple the _last _time they'd met Reinette as well. It clearly hadn't stopped him then.

Was it any wonder that this wasn't really a day that she wanted them to have to Groundhog Day their way through?

"No chance it'll happen?" Rose therefore challenged. "Really? So what's so different about this time, then?"

The Doctor struggled to find an answer. "Well obviously I... I mean, Reinette is... and you're... Well, I'm not planning to end up stuck in that other time stream, for one thing, even for just a few hours! That was a last-ditch effort. This time I have a better plan. Well, I will have, shortly."

Rose huffed, not at all satisfied.

"Anyway, it's not as if we can just leave," the Doctor added. "Jeanne Antoinette Poisson is just as important in this reality as in the one we came from. She can't die. We have to save her."

"Yeah, all right, don't you think I know that?" Rose said. "I just... can't we use the TARDIS to pop back and save her before we get all caught up in a time stream or whatever happened last time?"

"Well, I was aiming for the year three billion, seventy thousand and three, and instead we ended up here," the Doctor confessed. "The TARDIS clearly needs some fine tuning before we try for a precision landing. I doubt we'd even hit the right century and planet if we tried to go there now."

"That all sounds pretty normal for us, actually," remarked Rose. "You sure that's not just down to your drivin' skills?"

"Oi!"

"Just sayin'."

The Doctor was too distracted to retaliate against that blow to his ego, as one of the clockwork robots had just made an appearance on Reinette's side of the mirror. He went to shove the mirror open and step through just as Rose remembered he'd done the last time they'd been through all this. She stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"Don't," she pleaded. "Look, it's way too early in her life for that thing to be any real threat to her, right? If you go in there, you're just gonna be wastin' time that we could have spent actually fixin' the bigger problem. I thought you said you didn't want to get yourself stuck again."

"Rose," the Doctor said tersely, "I'm not going to just leave her to face that thing alone. She's a strong woman, but she still must be very afraid."

"Look," Rose said, frustrated. "I know you want to see her as that woman who was clearly all in love with you –"

"Rose," the Doctor sighed uncomfortably.

"– but she's not _her_," Rose insisted. "She didn't grow up havin' some guy jump in and out of her fireplace to save her from monsters. She doesn't know you at all. You burst in there now, out of what she thinks is just an ordinary mirror, don't you think she'll probably be just as scared of you as she is of it?"

The Doctor bit back his reply, though he still seemed reluctant to leave Reinette in a bad situation.

"C'mon," Rose added. "There's a better way to help her. If we get there early enough this time, couldn't we manage to shut down the time windows before they got to where they might hurt her?"

The Doctor nodded and seemed to finally decide to go along with her, at least for now. "Presuming that we could turn it off in a moment in which all of the clockwork scouts were back here on the ship, then yes, that would work. Probably. Hopefully." The Doctor allowed himself a slight smile and brandished the sonic screwdriver. "Rose, how would you feel about the two of us being bait?"

Rose returned a much stronger grin. "Since when has a day ever gone by when we _aren't_?"

"That's the spirit!" the Doctor said, seeming to perk up somewhat himself as he said it. "Come on! I seem to remember that the control panel we're looking for is this way."

"All right, but we gotta hurry if we're gonna do this," Rose said, swiftly trailing him. "So if you meet a stray horse on the way there, you know what you need to do?"

"Er, pretend I don't see it and walk straight past it?" the Doctor suggested.

"Just keep right on walkin'," Rose confirmed. "'Cause there's no way I'm lettin' you ride off and strand yourself anywhere without me this time. Not when I've only just got you and the TARDIS back again."

"Oh, but I hear 18th century France in this universe is a decent enough place, at least before the masses start rebelling. You could always jump on the back of the horse and come along with me," the Doctor offered. She knew he was at least half-joking, but it still made her incredibly happy that this time that possibility even occurred to him at all. If he'd be willing to take Rose with him, then maybe it really _was _more about saving Madame de Pompadour than him just being able to see Reinette again.

"How about we wait until the TARDIS is in proper workin' order before we go there and check it out, huh?" Rose suggested.

Rose reached out for his hand. He more than willingly gave it, entwining their fingers.

Even though he'd been torn, he'd chosen _her_this time, Rose realised.

With that in mind, Rose found she couldn't mind so much that they were stuck in something of a limbo. There'd clearly been subtle changes between them that she hadn't noticed since they'd been reunited. For him, choosing to go along with her plan even though it directly contradicted what he wanted to do was a pretty large step, actually. He might be part-human now, but he was still the _Doctor_; that man who could never just do things the easy way, and who was exactly the man she'd fallen in love with, after all. She supposed she really had to take that into account when judging things.

He'd stayed with her instead of going after Reinette. Rose figured that in return she could probably stop worrying so much and give him some more time to ease into things, if that was what he needed. It didn't seem like he was going anywhere any time soon.

After all, he'd said he had one life to live. If Rose had her say – and she would, since she knew she'd make sure he _kept_ taking account of her opinion, even if she had to tie him down and _make _him listen every so often when he got too carried away – the two of them would have that whole lifetime together to finally get it right.

~FIN~


End file.
